Global stewardship explores the perspective of caring for the entire globe—all its peoples and life. The interconnectedness of the basic elementary systems—air and water, which are both necessary for terrestrial and aquatic life—is acknowledged. The concomitant threats of their toxification from immoderate employments of substances and techniques justify the need for global respect and cooperation as well as effective world economic systems as the means to sustain this life.

This essay affirms the proposition that dialogue emerges from being itself. There are five parts: being and nature; how it follows that dialogue emerges from being itself; full dialogue; why it is that dialogue has faltered; and ground for optimism, given the noticeable turn in recent decades to an ontology of relationship. We, the human species, are part of nature. We are part of an evolutionary development. The full comprehension of this reality leads to critique of the separation between nature and supra-nature in the ontology of ancient Green philosophers and of Christian, Judaic, and Muslim religions—a separation that posits the hierarchic superiority and dominance of the Idea as in Plato and of God in the religions, replacing the unity of spirit and nature in the earlier animistic religions. Nor has the ascendance of mechanistic modernity in the work of Bacon, Descartes, Newton and their heirs to this day changed the separation. The Cartesianformulation of “I think therefore I am” backed up by the notion of a deistic first mover, scraped nature clean of spiritual and moral qualities and made it open to industrial exploitation, resource extraction, and degradation. Einstein and the quantum theorists who developed his breakthroughs led science to a new view of nature as a world of internal relations. This provides scope and substance for re-thinking nature as revealing multiple sets of interactive relationships. Interactive relationships are the ground for the gradual development of dialogue. The older ontologies of separation had little scope or support for dialogue since the dominating style and substance of relationship was consumed in patterns and styles of command and obedience. The new ontology of relationship reveals and fosters the reality of interactive communication and dialogue. Full dialogue is a mutual awareness and authentication of each other’s lived being leading todeeper and deeper levels of successful understanding and action together. Yet dialogue has had to take a back seat for much of human history since the emergence of stratified and hierarchical agrarian societies capped in recent centuries by industrial command structures and technologically advanced warfare. But the new understanding of nature and of its multiple interactive relationships is making significant headway and there is ground for optimism that dialogue will at some point come fully into its own.

During the last decades evolutionary science has made significance progress in the elucidation of the process of human evolution and especially of human behavioral characteristics. These themes were traditionally subjects of inquiry in philosophy and theology. Already Darwin suggested an evolutionary and biological basis for moral sense or conscience, and answered Kant’s question about the origin of the moral rules postulated by philosophers. This article reviews the current status of such investigations by natural scientists, biologists and psychologists, and compares their models for explanation of human moral behavior with those postulated by philosophers. Today natural scientists postulate cooperation as the third element of evolutionary process after mutations and natural selection. They seem to fully confirm the intuition of philosophers. The thesis on the fundamental status of cooperation in the entire animal world leads to a belief concerning dialogue: dialogue, rooted in a sense in cooperation, is a primary men’s capability, being emerged from the biological essence of humans. Thus the examination of cooperation reveals inter alia biological foundations of dialogue.

This meditation is a series of reflections about some milestones along my philosophical journey that concern universals, universal definitions, claims to universal moral principles, and universal dialogue. It begins with a focus on the Socratic search for universal definitions of general terms; and it continues with a look at the way my discovery of non-Euclidean geometries began to challenge my attitude toward the possibility of universal definitions of all general terms. Along the way I bring out how Wittgenstein’s notion of “family resemblances” added to this challenge. The meditation continues with reflections on Kant’s attempts to make a case for a universal and unconditional moral imperative. Following this I sketch a counter-case that the concrete human being gets lost in a haze of Kantian abstraction. These reflections bring out the clear conceptual linkage between the “abstract universal” and the “external relation” as canons ofinterpretation.The meditation then makes a shift to some later milestones on my journey, beginning with reflection on the “concrete universal” and the “internal relation” as alternative canons of interpretation. I try to illustrate how Marx critically appropriated Hegel’s view of these canons via discussion of Marx’s notion of “praxis;” and then go on to adopt these canons of interpretation throughout the rest of the meditation. Employing these canons of interpretation, and with Aristotle’s very broad understanding of the term “politics” in mind, I construe universal dialogue to be a mode of discourse oriented toward the development of a new “politics of the global village” that could cultivate the practice of concretely relating to the other person as a person. Inasmuch as Aristotle construed “politics” as involving a developed ethics as well as a “science of society” (in addition to what westerners currently mean by the term), the meditation proceeds with a preliminary sketch of these two dimensions of a new “politics of the global village.”My meditation goes on to suggest a fundamental ethical principle (contrasting it with Kant’s moral imperative) that could be concretely and universally adopted by all people, and that could guide universal dialogue. The meditation continues with a sketch of a philosophical reconstruction of a humanistic Marxist “science of society,” and integrates the fundamental ethical principle with it. This sketch is basically a philosophical clarification of Marx’s theory of cultural evolution that brings into play the key role of the concrete universal and the internal relation as fundamental canons of interpretation. The meditation concludes with an argument that universal dialogue on the part of a very wide spectrum of ordinary people, as well as specialists, is the sine qua non for any hope of transforming the secular basis of human societies in the direction of social justice, as all of humanity faces the daunting crises that loom throughout planet Earth.

This essay outlines my view on the anthropic conditions of authentic dialogue. In my opinion dialogue as such can be pursued only by people endowed with specific qualities and enjoying maximal fulfilment as human beings: people who are creative, who have an active attitude towards themselves and the world, who do not feel estranged from it but are united with it, and for whom the world is neither alien nor hostile, people who are free and responsible. These anthropic conditions of dialogue are connected with the herein-postulated image of human nature, whereby human nature is not only bound to the world by social relations but is co-created by the world, simultaneously retaining its subjective, individual dimension. In this context I will outline my concept of homo creator as a vision of modern humanism. In my belief this anthropological concept is one of the fundaments of philosophy of dialogue.

This paper argues that the pluralist ethos of today’s world requires dialogue, i.e., the construction of shared meaning through a plurality of perspectives. This, in turn, requires that partners in dialogue overcome the perspective of the “master self” who claims universal legislative authority in its quest for epistemic closure. Dialogue requires the cultivation and development of a dialogical self-identity that reflects the ability to co-construct shared meaning without the erasure or suppression of differences.

Basing on ideas proposed by Jean Baudrillard, Slavoj Žižek, Emmanuel Levinas, and Jürgen Habermas, this paper suggests combining the concept of horizontal (intersubjective) relationships between people with the idea of the vertical dialogue with the transcendental, the spirit. The logic of ultimate mutuality brings us closer to the idea of dialogue with the transcendental; the Other as the spirit appears as a third party in the intersubjective space of dialogue. Thus intersubjectivity may become a condition of implementing human spirituality.

This paper explores civility as a virtue for individuals within the sphere of civil society. Civil society is conceived as consisting of voluntary associations regulated by persuasion, praise, and shame. The virtue of civility is a key value for members of the associations of civil society. The paper considers circumstances in which institutions of civil society breakdown and in which unscrupulous and un-civil operators take advantage of more civil members. While admitting that civility is a fragile virtue, the paper concludes that best solution to threats to civility is to avoid cynicism and to cultivate common-sense moral behavior that models civility.

This paper summarizes Ervin Laszlo’s worldview in The Systems View of the World: A Holistic Vision for Our Time.1 Laszlo claims that current discoveries in the sciences have led to a different model of the physical world, human nature, and human culture. Instead of the models formulated during the Enlightenment, according Systems thinkers “systems interact with systems and collaboratively form suprasystems” (Laszlo E. 1996, 60). This view has led to a reexamination of: 1) each academic discipline; 2) the relationship between disciplines; 3) the nature of theory and its relation to practice; 4) the relationship between religion and the sciences; 5) of the nature of the social sciences and our ability to develop a universal, normative ethic; 6) the relation between reasoning, emotion and imagination. The evolution of the reflective self-consciousness unique to homo sapiens has led to the formation of cultures. Cultures must be understood assuprasystems that emerged from natural systems and are dependent upon them. Given this universal natural foundation, systems thinkers are recognizing the common patterns between nature and culture and between different cultures. The examination of systems has also shown us that the suprasystems of culture create a level of complexity and reality over and above the natural world and can even destroy themselves and their own natural foundationFrom the perspective of the ISUD, this view means it is possible, natural, and necessary for academics to engage in meaningful dialogue with each other, showing how the ways they have been trained to examine “reality,” or “truth,” can be integrated. Further, professional academics should be able to talk to non-academics, to people in leadership roles, and to all human actors. Since it is a fact that individuals are parts of many larger wholes, the ISUD can nurture the process of the development of reflective self-consciousness in the formation of an international culture, an emerging suprasystem.Laszlo calls this sphere of spiritual interaction, with its physical foundation, a noosphere, his word for a “meeting of the minds.” Given our collective destruction of natural systems, it is imperative that human beings develop some version of a Systems view of reality. ISUD should work to foster this development, even though the professional training of individuals will call the process by other names, based on the labels of the past.

Examining dialogue, one may underline its being amicable or not, intellectual (Socratic) or not, useful or useless, plainly transferring message or hinting metamessage, serving social or private goals etc. However, speaking about dialogue in general we speak in terms of semiotics.Considering globalization in general one should adopt the semiotic framework within which globalization is not just a collection of cases, and globalistics (a field of academic research) is not only a catalogue registering it. It will turn globalization into the subject of philosophical interest. The paper presents a specific basis for semiotic investigations. This basis postulates inter alia the fourth part (besides the three standard ones, i.e. syntactics, semantics, and pragmatics), not widely known, called sigmatics, dealing with the construction of adequate ontologies. It can help to explain in a complete way what we observe in the present and to foresee the prospects of the future, including the integrated problems of dialogue, globalization and tolerance which are the main concern of the presented considerations. Some special characteristics of the semiotic research and of globalistics in Russia are displayed in two Appendixes.

Is a rational approach always able to resolve intercultural conflicts about values and morals? The leading questions of this paper deal with the relationship between cultural difference and moral reasoning, the possibility to argue about cultural differences and the possibility of rational grounds for intercultural dialogue. The underlying idea is that a true intercultural attitude needs a serious theoretical and methodological reflection in order to be aware of the limits of understanding and the pitfalls of universalism. In the first part of the paper I will give a general account of cultural difference and why does it matter from a moral point of view. In the second part I will deal with the issue of rationality, arguing for a pluralistic account of reason. Then I will focus on its relation with cultural differences, outlining some features of moral reasoning as intercultural dialogue.

The essay reviews references to Immanuel Kant’s transcendental philosophy in the work of Helmuth Plessner. First discussed is the Krisis der transzendentalen Wahrheit im Anfang, in which Plessner effects a critique of the transcendental method and shows that overcoming its crisis requires philosophy to rigorously restrict the applicability of theory to the experimental sphere and put it up for judgment by the tribunal of practical reason. Next under scrutiny is Plessner’s programmatic text in philosophical anthropology, in which he strives to employ Kant’s deductive method for the construction of his own system of organic forms.

The objective of the article is to present Hans Kelsen’s basic norm concept that allows the combination of the two relevant dimensions in relation to juridical science, namely the positivity and validity of law. The role of the concept of basic norm is presented by the author of the Reine Rechtslehre with reference to Kant (read through the works by H. Cohen) as a concept enabling formulation of an answer to the question “To what extent is it possible to interpret certain facts as objectively valid legal norms?” The epistemological problem of the object of cognition of juridical science is connected with the issue of normativity. According to Kelsen, only the assumption of a certain nonpositive hypothetical norm regulating the legislation of norms of a given system enables normative interpretation of certain facts. The basic norm authorizes the way of issuing norms, yet not their content. The structure of the legal order creates a hierarchical system in which the higher category norms delegate the law-making power to create the lower category norms. The legal system creates a dynamic system of norms.

The paper considers two—in author’s belief fundamental—approaches to apriority, which he proposes to call “absolute” and “relative.” The first was most fully expressed by Immanuel Kant, the second by Ludwig Wittgenstein. In author’s opinion, both derive from empiricist philosophy in its modern form. The concept of experience which is characteristic of modern empiricism forces acceptance of certain experienceindependent (a priori) assumptions, thanks to which only experience can provide information about objects. Depending on whether we regard these assumptions as independent of all experience or only from a specific context and reference frame and empirical in other contexts, we receive respectively absolute and relative apriority. The author attempts to prove that relative apriority is the continuation, generalisation and radicalisation of the absolute variant.

The text considers the possibility of studying the Freudian psychoanalysis as a certain form of transcendentalism. In particular, it analyses the relation of Freud’sproposition concerning the strangeness within the subject—a strangeness called unconsciousness—to Kant’s claim about the necessity of the synthetic unity ofapperception. The study commences with Ricoeur’s reading of Freud’s teachings in order to demonstrate how, by introducing the language of transcendental philosophy into the reading of Freud’s works, Ricoeur omits the issue of the subjective conditions for the constitution of any possible meaning. Next, searching for the possibility to formulate these conditions on the grounds of Freudian psychoanalysis, the text investigates relevant Heidegger’s reading of Kant. It finds in it the model justification for such understanding of the unity of “I think” which makes it, already at its core, conditioned by diversity identified with temporality. By attempting to grasp the contradiction between such a temporal condition for subjectivity and Freud’s postulate on the timeless nature of unconsciousness, the text applies Derrida’s criticism of the metaphysical conception of time, which is directed exactly at Heidegger’s metaphysics of Dasein. In consequence, it turns out that a profound justification seems to exist for the seemingly paradoxical Freudian statement about unconsciousness as linked with, on the one hand, the most primal intuitions still grounded in animism, and on the other, with a continuation of Kant’s teachings.

Following Ricoeur and referring to some contemporary phenomenological studies I demonstrate—perhaps differently than others do—that Husserl’s phenomenological undertaking has also hermeneutic aspects. With Husserl, we are in a meaningful world which reveals its sense in intentional acts. The interpretation of senses can be treated as experiencing them. In particular, I examine the peculiar hermeneutics of affectiveness and sensation, i.e. the hermeneutics that is broadly understood as a project of demonstrating the origin of meaning. This project reaches the difference founding all the articulations of meaning rather than some aprioric basis of understanding. The difference is a source that flows in experience of sense, even in their mature culturally articulatedforms, which are, however, forever permeated by sensation and the affective.

The paper aims to reconstruct Heidegger’s historical-intentional assumptions in his ontological interpretation of Kant’s Critique of Pure Reason. The paper presents young Heidegger’s project of the “metaphysical-teleological interpretation of consciousness.” The project indicates the direction of his further ontological interpretation of transcendentalism: Heidegger stands up to the traditional, well known neo-Kantian interpretation of the Critique, and offers a new conception of ontological knowledge and cognition. According to this conception, cognition is grounded in transcendental imagination where a threefold synthesis takes place. Heidegger’s original temporal interpretation of transcendental schematism is also recalled to stress the significance of his new ontological approach to Kant’s theoretical philosophy.

The article presents the philosophical thought of Rudolf Zocher, Wolfgang Cramer and Hans Wagner, whose theoretical stance can be dubbed Neoneo-Kantianism. The article investigates their philosophical output and argues that they developed a transcendental reflection of a different kind than that of Baden Neo-Kantianism. The transcendental reflection of Neoneo-Kantianism, especially in the work of Hans Wagner, takes on the topic of phenomenological inquiry and treats consciousness as a source of subject- object distinction, unlike Rickert and Windelband, who were developing transcendental reflection focused on aprioristic forms of cognition, much in the post-Fichtean vein, thus giving primacy to the subjective conditions of possible experience.